Woodburn Anzac Day march cancelled

DIGGERS missed out on their Woodburn Anzac Day march for the first time in 60 years yesterday because of a misunderstanding with the RTA.

Every year 300m of the Pacific Highway has been closed by police to allow ex-servicemen to march to the Woodburn cenotaph at Riverside Park.

But in August, the RTA became the final authority on major road closures ? a change the Woodburn Evans Head RSL Club Subbranch did not know about.

The RTA has said event organisers had to pay for professional traffic controllers to be present.

Sub-branch secretary John Saunders said the march was cancelled due to a combination of cost and time.

He said the sub-branch chose not to apply for the road closure because it could not afford to hire traffic controllers and did not learn soon enough the RTA had been put in charge of road closures on the Pacific Highway.

An RTA spokesperson said the authority could have looked at continuing the previous arrangement if the sub-branch had applied to have the road closed for the march.